A former high school science teacher turned creation science evangelist told an audience at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee last Tuesday that evolution is the dumbest and most dangerous theory on planet Earth.

Kent Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism, presented Creation or Evolution Which Has More Merit? to a standing-room only audience in the Union Ballroom on Dec. 6. The event was sponsored by the Apologetics Association, the organization that brought Baptist minister Tim Wilkins to UWM to speak about homosexuality in October.

No debate challengers

Members of the Apologetics Association (AA) contacted biology, chemistry and geology professors at UWM and throughout the UW System, inviting them to debate Hovind for an honorarium of $200 to be provided to the individual or group of individuals who agreed.

Before the event began, the No-Debater List, which was comprised of slides listing the names of UWM science professors who declined the invitation, was projected behind the stage.

Dustin Wales, AA president, said it was his biggest disappointment that no professor agreed to debate Hovind.

No professor wanted to defend his side, he said. I mean, we had seats reserved for their people cause I know one objection could have been Oh, its just a bunch of Christians. So we had seats reserved for them to bring people to make sure that its somewhat more equal, not just all against one. And still nobody would do it.

Biology professor Andrew Petto said: It is a pernicious lie that the Apologetics (Association) is spreading that no one responded to the challenge. Many of us (professors) did respond to the challenge; what we responded was, No, thank you. 

Petto, who has attended three of Hovinds performances, said that because Hovind presents misinterpretations, half truths and outright lies, professors at UWM decided not to accept his invitation to a debate.

In a nutshell, debates like this do not settle issues of scientific understanding, he said. Hovind and his arguments are not even in the same galaxy as legitimate scientific discourse. This is why the faculty here has universally decided not to engage Hovind. The result would be to give the appearance of a controversy where none exists.

He added, The faculty on campus is under no obligation to waste its time supporting Hovinds little charade.

Kent Hovind, a former high school science teacher turned creation science evangelist, said that evolution is the "dumbest and most dangerous theory on planet Earth" at a program in the Union on Dec. 6.

Hovind, however, is used to being turned down. Near the end of his speech, he said, Over 3,000 professors have refused to debate me. Why? Because Im not afraid of them.

No truths in textbooks

Hovind began his multimedia presentation by asserting that evolution is the dumbest and most dangerous theory used in the scientific community, but that he is not opposed to science.

Our ministry is not against science, but against using lies to prove things, he said. He followed this statement by citing biblical references to lies, which were projected onto screens behind him.

Hovind said: I am not trying to get evolution out of schools or to get creation in. We are trying to get lies out of textbooks. He added that if removing lies from textbooks leaves no evidence for evolutionists theory, then they should get a new theory.

He cited numerous state statutes that require that textbooks be accurate and up-to-date, but said these laws are clearly not enforced because the textbooks are filled with lies and are being taught to students.

Petto said it is inevitable that textbooks will contain some errors.

Sometimes, this is an oversight. Sometimes it is the result of the editorial and revision process. Sometimes it is the result of trying to portray a rich and complex idea in a very few words, he said.

The first lie Hovind presented concerned the formation of the Grand Canyon. He said that two people can look at the canyon. The person who believes in evolution would say, Wow, look what the Colorado River did for millions and millions of years. The Bible-believing Christian would say, Wow, look what the flood did in about 30 minutes.

To elaborate, Hovind discussed the geologic column  the chronologic arrangement of rock from oldest to youngest in which boundaries between different eras are marked by a change in the fossil record. He explained that it does not take millions of years to form layers of sedimentary rock.

You can get a jar of mud out of your yard, put some water in it, shake it up, set it down, and it will settle out into layers for you, he said. Hovind used this concept of hydrologic sorting to argue that the biblical flood is what was responsible for the formation of the Grand Canyons layers of sedimentary rock.

Hovind also criticized the concept of micro-evolution, or evolution on a small, species-level scale. He said that micro-evolution is, in fact, scientific, observable and testable. But, he said, it is also scriptural, as the Bible says, They bring forth after his kind.

Therefore, according to the Bible and micro-evolution, dogs produce a variety of dogs and they all have a common ancestor  a dog.

Hovind said, however, Charles Darwin made a giant leap of faith and logic from observing micro-evolution into believing in macro-evolution, or evolution above the species level. Hovind said that according to macro-evolution, birds and bananas are related if one goes back far enough in time, and the ancestor ultimately was a rock.

He concluded his speech by encouraging students to personally remove the lies from their textbooks and parents to lobby their school board for accurate textbooks.

Tear that page out of your book, he said. Would you leave that in there just to lie to the kids?

Faith, not science

Petto said Hovind believes the information in textbooks to be lies because his determination is grounded in faith, not science.

Make no mistake, this is not a determination made on the scientific evidence, but one in which he has decided on the basis of faith alone that the Bible is correct, and if the Bible is correct, then science must be wrong, he said.

Petto said Hovind misinterprets scientific information and then argues against his misinterpretation.

That is, of course, known as the straw man argument  great debating strategy, but nothing to do with what scientists actually say or do, he said. The bottom line here is that the science is irrelevant to his conclusions.

Another criticism of Hovinds presentation is his citation of pre-college textbooks. Following the event, an audience member said, I dont think using examples of grade school and high school biology can stand up to evolution.

Petto called this an interesting and effective rhetorical strategy and explained that Hovind is not arguing against science, but the textbook version of science.

The texts are not presenting the research results of the scientific community per se, but digesting and paraphrasing it in a way to make it more effective in learning science, he said. So, what (Hovind) is complaining about is not what science says, but what the textbooks say that science says.

Petto said this abbreviated version of scientific research is due, in part, to the editorial and production processes, which impose specific limits on what is included.

He added that grade school and high school textbooks tend to contain very general information about evolution and pressure from anti-evolutionists has weakened evolutionary discussion in textbooks.

Lower-level texts tend to be more general in their discussions of evolution and speak more vaguely of change over time and adaptation and so on, he said. Due to pressure by anti-evolutionists, textbook publishers tend to shy away from being too evolutionary in their texts The more pressure there is on schools and publishers, the weaker the evolution gets, and the weaker it gets, the more likely that it will not do a good job of representing the current consensus among biologists.

Debate offer still stands

Hovind has a standing offer of $250,000 for anyone who can give any empirical evidence (scientific proof) for evolution. According to Hovinds Web site, the offer demonstrates that the hypothesis of evolution is nothing more than a religious belief.

The Web site, www.drdino.com, says, Persons wishing to collect the $250,000 may submit their evidence in writing or schedule time for a public presentation. A committee of trained scientists will provide peer review of the evidence offered and, to the best of their ability, will be fair and honest in their evaluation and judgment as to the validity of the evidence presented.

Make it visible

Wales said the AAs goal in bringing Hovind to UWM was to crack the issue on campus and bring attention to the fallibility of evolution.

The ultimate goal was to say that, Gosh, evolution isnt as concrete as you say it is, and why do you get to teach everyone this non-concrete thing and then not defend it when someone comes and says your wrong?  he said. Its just absurd.

And whether do you do or not, do you *really* believe that anyone is going to mistake your bizarre rant for an adequate rebuttal to the enormous amount of hard evidence contained in the link you're trying to blow off?

What's wrong with you folks? Do you find reality that hard to take a good look at?

Absolutely no theory in science is ever proven. Why single out evolution?

Show me a fish evolving to a man right now, and I might believe your stupid ass theory...

BELIEVE is the key word there for both you and I. The only difference I state my theory as a belief, your ilk tries to state BELIEF as fact, and I don't buy it and apparently neither does the majority of people, at least honest people.

Show me a fish evolving to a man right now, and I might believe your stupid ass theory...

If we watched "a fish evolving to a man right now," you would no doubt, and with good reason, declare that as evidence of a great miracle, and it would no doubt throw into doubt many accepted ideas in evolutionary science. It would be (the first) evidence for Intelligent Design.

Is it the contention of all you evolutionist that just because I've had something explained to me that mean I should just automatically belive in the cult of evolution?

No, we merely expect you to be able to learn something from the explanations.

Sadly, even in that modest expectation, we are repeatedly disappointed.

New information you choose not to accept -- no matter how well established or sourced -- merely bounces off your forehead with a sharp "ping", and leaves no trace of its passage. (A classic example of Morton's Demon in action.) Meanwhile, anything you want to believe, no matter how goofy, gets swallowed uncritically as gospel.

It is necessary to keep lies as short as possible, directly linked to an appeal to emotion and to move on to a different lie as seamlessly as possible. If the audience is allowed to dwell on the lie for any more than a few seconds, they may develop questions that will expose the lie.

Your poor understanding of the Big Bang is as bad as your misunderstandings about most other topics. The Big Bang neither involved an "explosion", or something coming from "nothing". Try learning some physics before you attempt to critique it.

These same people who champion the theory would be the first ones to decry any halftruth in any other field!

Although the posts on FR are available through Google (giving a bigger audience), it may be an idea to issue the challenge directly to Hovind. I suspect Hovind has a couple of email addresses, one where he 'bots' replies to the faithful, and one he actually reads. Anyone know an email address that will actually reach Hovind?

Well why don't you guys take him on. If you win the debate you win the debate, irregardless of if he has the $250K. I think if the debate actually was going to happen ,the $250K would materialize from somewhere.

Wolf

538
posted on 12/17/2005 5:08:51 PM PST
by RunningWolf
(Vet US Army Air Cav 1975)

It's all interesting, especially when I think I'm debating intellegent people who will just not THINK about what they believe.

I have no problem with people believing in evolution, but not at the expence of them touting it as fact. Also, Hovind gives just as logical explanation for life as any evolutinist I've ever heard...The problem is evo's can't stand the compitition.

"Show me a fish evolving to a man right now, and I might believe your stupid ass theory...

The ToE does not say that any organism from one Class would ever evolve into an organism from another Class in one generation. I believe you know this. You simply create this strawman because you have no ammunition when it comes to attacking an accurate version of the ToE.

When scientists collect evidence from a dozen different fields of science that fit in with a theory it is hardly just a belief. In my opinion, you are insisting on calling it a belief in order to bring it down to the level you consider your own beliefs to be.

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